


Cut Right To The Quick

by WulfenOne



Series: Butterflies With Angel Wings [8]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 21:40:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12141723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WulfenOne/pseuds/WulfenOne
Summary: Scott Summers and Jean Grey try to help Betsy Braddock through the trauma of being raped, and her own nightmares.





	1. Chapter 1

"Hi."

I look up from the book in my hands to see a familiar pair of faces at the door of the room that I have been staying in ever since Hank grudgingly allowed me to leave the infirmary about a week ago, one partially masked by a pair of ruby-red glasses, and the other framed – perfectly, some might say – by a mass of flame-red curls. I put my book down on my bedside table after fitting a paper bookmark into the place I had reached (although I'm not sure why I bother; I'd only been reading the same page over and over again for the last five minutes anyway...), and watch the two of them enter the room almost as one, their movements complementing each other to a degree that is hard to comprehend. I often find myself wishing that Warren and I had that kind of connection, but then I remember that we do - it just expresses itself differently.

"Hello, Jean," I reply, listlessly. "To what do I owe this... honour?"

Jean smiles and moves towards my bed, taking my hand in her own. "We just wanted to come see how you were, Betsy. Isn't that right, Scott?" Scott nods almost imperceptibly - a gesture that would be virtually impossible for a non-telepath to read, since without his eyes to show you his emotions, his movements are almost meaningless unless you can sense the motivations behind them. I sometimes wonder what he'd be like if he hadn't been found and swaddled so much by Professor Xavier and Jean, and then I wonder if perhaps I really want to know. There is so much I don't know about Scott and Jean, and sometimes I think that's not such a bad thing. After all, after you've heard the tenth nonsensical explanation of Scott's family tree (all pasts, presents, and alternate futures and/or realities included), it does push you away to at least some degree.

"That's right, Betsy," he says, almost on cue. "We were both really concerned for you after what Warren told us the other day – he's really worried too, you know. We all are."

I rub my eyes tiredly. "Thank you for the concern, Scott, but I'm all right. I really am. I just need to rest a little – Hank says that if I don't do anything drastic at this point, I should be able to walk without a limp in a few days."

Jean grips my hand a little tighter. "It must be a real relief to hear that, huh?"

I raise an eyebrow. "You have no idea."

Jean, seeing I'm not going to be any more forthcoming on that score, lets go of my hand and turns back towards Scott for a moment, taking the small package in his hands that had hitherto gone unmentioned, and presents it to me. It is wrapped in subdued paper and is likely to be some sort of book, but I can't sure. "Here," she says. "A little present to help the time pass a little faster." She hands it to me and I can see that it is delicately decorated with a red ribbon tied in a tiny bow. Finding a seam, I open it carefully, and inside the paper I find a small compilation of poems about nature, assembled by someone whose name I don't recognise (and for me that's quite an achievement, believe me, considering how numerous similarly-themed poetry anthologies are on my bookshelves).

"We searched for that for a week," Scott says, with a wider smile than before. "We knew we had to find you something that you hadn't already got, so we spent about three hours in New York every day, looking through the tiniest bookshops in the Village – you probably know the kind I'm talking about – and we eventually found you that. I hope you enjoy it."

"Thank you, Scott." I put the gift to one side, on top of the book I'd been trying to read before, and fold my hands in my lap. "Thank you, Jean."

"No problem, Betsy," Jean says quietly, her eyes looking troubled for a fraction of an instant, and her mind registering the merest amount of discomfort before she regains her composure. If I weren't a telepath and a former STRIKE agent, I might have missed it, but so synchronised are my telepathy and my training that I catch it almost before it even starts, and react accordingly.

"Why are you really here, Jean?" I ask, flatly. The direct approach is disconcerting for the subjectee, and usually at least somewhat productive for the subjecter, which is why I was one of STRIKE's best interrogators, back in the days when my life made at least a moderate amount of sense. My telepathy wasn't exactly a hindrance either, but it helps to have something other than mutant powers to fall back on when you want to find out pertinent information in as short a time as possible. "I appreciate the visit, I assure you, but you're not just here to give me another get well present and your good wishes, are you?"

"I'm... not sure what you mean," Jean says, clearly lying through her teeth (An unpractised liar is as easy to spot as a funeral pyre is at night. How? Watch their eyes. Their pupils dilate so much it's as if they're in pitch darkness. And besides that, they fidget more than usual, whether they know they're doing it or not. Only a person who's been lying their entire life could suppress these symptoms - and a habitual liar Jean most definitely is not. Consequently, she's as easy for me to read as a children's picture book, even without my psionic powers). She wrings her hands awkwardly, like a child caught with her hand in the biscuit jar, and looks unhappily at the ceiling for a moment - which really only confirms what I already knew

I narrow my eyes. Evidently this isn't going to be as smooth as I had wanted it to be. "Jean, my telepathy is still active. Please don't patronise me by pretending it isn't."

Jean sighs. "I'm sorry, Betsy. We... should have been straight with you from the start. Scott and I... well, we'd like to talk to you about what you're going to do about Rebecca." Scott nods and moves forward to grasp the back of the second free chair in the room so that he can sit beside his wife. He scratches the bridge of his nose carefully, adjusting his glasses slightly so that they sit more comfortably on his nose, and takes a deep breath before speaking, as if to compose himself.

It doesn't matter anyway - I don't give him the opportunity. Instead, I jab my forefinger at the two of them and snap "What is there to discuss? I don't want anything to do with that... thing... down in the med-lab. That's what I'm going to do about her. What were you expecting, Jean? That I'd just want to wake her up and play happy families with her as if nothing happened? God, you're so bloody naïve! Do you really think I would even want to talk to her after what she did to me?" I raise my right hand, and I feel it ball into a quaking fist for a moment. The impulse to punch Jean for her insensitivity (unintentional or otherwise) is almost too strong to resist, but I manage to control it - for the moment, at least. "Tell you what, Jean," I say, flatly, regaining most of my composure. "You think that creature down there is still capable of redemption, then you take her. You're so eager for someone to be a mother to her, after all – why not yourself? I'm sure she'd appreciate all that perfect love and affection you two can give her. Isn't that why you came down here? To convince me to turn her over to the two of you? Fine. Then you take her - nobody's stopping you, after all. Least of all me."

Jean rubs the corners of her eyes, and then folds her arms. "We're not here to do that, Betsy," she says, simply.

Scott nods in agreement. "None of us are expecting you to love Rebecca right now, but you're going to have to decide what you want to do about her sooner or later. Jean and I wanted to help you through your options right now, that's all."

"Oh, my, how gracious. The great and wonderful Cyclops and Phoenix have come down from their little ivory tower to help me with my pathetic little existence. Should I feel privileged, Scott? Should I feel blessed?" I shake my head slowly, a soft, bitter laugh emerging from my lips. "I don't know. Perhaps you could help me with that, too? You two seem to have all the answers, after all."

"We don't have all the answers, Betsy; we just want to help you –" Jean begins, her head tilted slightly to the side, and one hand at her forehead briefly. And that's when the fragile walls I had built for myself over the past week or so start to crumble, freeing the blood-red tide of emotion that I'd kept pent-up inside me for a while now. Perhaps I was just looking for an excuse to release it, I'm not sure.

"Oh, piss off, Jean! I'm sick to death of you people coming in here and walking on eggshells around me, just because you think I'm too fucking weak to stand up to what happened by myself! Can't any of you give me at least a little credit? I hate this! It's not enough that I have to try and sleep without pissing my sheets because of the nightmares – oh no. I also have to deal with you people all queuing up to say how sorry you are and give me a box of fucking chocolates, as if that'll make everything all right again. You think you're helping me, but you're not." I bite my lip to silence the sob that I can feel rising in my throat. "You're not."

"But we want to," Scott says quietly. "Look, Betsy, nobody here wants to see you suffering, but we can't help you if you keep pushing us away. Why won't you let us in?"

"Why? I'll tell you why, Mr Summers. I don't let you in," I reply, coldly, and with the barest minimum of emotion, "because you don't understand. None of you do. You never could, not unless it happened to you. Don't try and insult my intelligence by saying that you do."

"Neither of us are saying that," Scott says patiently, "but I want you to know that we do understand what you're feeling about Rebecca. Both of us have gone through the same thing - I felt the same after I found out Nathan was my son. I couldn't make the connection between the sick little boy I'd had to send to the future, and the man who he'd become, and it frightened me. I was angry at what'd happened, and I wasn't sure of what to do, or who to turn to. I felt alone, Betsy, and I felt confused - I even felt a little scared for a while. Jean felt the same way about Rachel." He looks briefly at his wife, who nods slowly and takes a deep breath before speaking again.

"That's... that's right," she whispers softly. "I didn't know what to make of Rachel when I first met her – except I knew that I felt angry towards her. I blamed her for the feeling that the universe had already made up its mind about what I was going to do, or become. I wouldn't talk to her, and I wouldn't go near her. I hated her, Betsy. I hated her and I didn't want anything to do with her. Why should I, when she was already as grown up as she was going to get – she didn't need me, right?" She laughs quietly, bitterly. "I ignored the fact that she was really just a kid, Betsy – that she didn't know anything else but war, and slavery. And I rejected her. Some great mother I turned out to be, right?" She sighs. "I don't want you to make the same mistake, that's all.

"Thank you for the concern, Jean," I reply, my voice calmer, but still edged with bitter resentment, "but you still haven't the faintest idea of how I feel. Let me ask you this - did Rachel beat the living hell out of you when you first saw her? Did you see her after being tied up and beaten for the best part of a week?" Turning towards Scott, I point at him in an accusatory fashion. "And was Nathan just an 'experiment' that Sinister grew to pass the time? A side-show freak created because that evil bastard was bored? No. I don't think you do understand. Not really. Rebecca is genetically my child, but she's not my daughter. I don't want anything to do with her. Logan can stab her through the heart, for all I care. It'd be a mercy killing for both of us."

"You don't mean that, Betsy," Scott says quietly, clearly quite disturbed by what I've just said – and why shouldn't he be? It is, after all, his own offspring that I'm proposing be slaughtered like a deaf and blind heifer. "That's not the Betsy Braddock I know."

"See what I'm talking about, Scott?" I snap, suddenly. "You don't know me at all! You're not a bloody telepath – and none of those are very good at telling me who I am, either. I'm not sure I even know myself, anymore. So I wouldn't go making wild statements like that unless you're prepared to back them up, all right, Scott?" I sigh, quietly, rubbing my face with my hands. "I just... I just want to talk to someone who understands. Is that such a big thing to ask?"

"No, Betsy," Jean says quietly. "If you tell us what you want us to know, we'll try to understand." She reaches for my hand again, but I move it away before she can get a firm grip. She folds her hand back into her lap silently, and waits for me to speak again. When I do, I don't mince my words. The direct approach is all these two have ever understood, after all...

"All right, Jean," I begin, "how about you try to understand what it feels like to be totally and utterly helpless, unable to do anything but pray that you'll be allowed to take another breath while your privates are being violated by someone you hate? How about you try to understand what it feels like to be beaten with a crowbar just because Arclight had a headache? How about you try to understand what it feels like to want to die every morning, because you're in such overwhelming agony that living for another minute seems too painful?" I spread my hands. "And how about you try to understand that Rebecca reminds me of everything that happened there every single time I look at her; and not only that, she shows me the worst part of myself - the part of me I'd almost forgotten since I got my real body back. The part of me that reminds me of Kwannon, and what Spiral did to her, and to me. The part of me that I still hate to acknowledge." I pause, feeling the tears beading at the edges of my eyes, and spilling down my cheeks in two cold streams. "That's why I can't stand to be anywhere near her, Jean. She makes me feel ashamed, she makes me feel cheap, and she makes me feel disgusted with myself. And I have had enough of that to last me the rest of my life, thanks to far, far too many people. I'm tired of it, Jean – I'm tired of it and I want it to stop. Until you can understand that, Jean, I suggest you get out and leave me in peace."

"I'm not going to leave, Betsy," Scott says firmly. "That's my daughter down there in the med-lab -"

"Only when it suits you," I snap, acidly. "As soon as you don't want her any more, you'll forget about her." I smile thinly, humourlessly. "But then, that's the way your family works, isn't it? If you don't want your little boys, you throw them out of an aeroplane -"

Scott slaps me across the left side of my face, hard. The sound reverberates through my room, and the stinging pain in my cheek brings Scott's rage into stark relief. "Don't you ever," Scott says quietly, his voice frighteningly calm, although his face is twisted with anguish, "ever mention my parents like that again. My mother did that to save Alex and me. And I never saw her again, Betsy. I never got to say goodbye. I lost the people who raised me and I never got the chance to say goodbye. How the hell do you think that makes me feel? Good?"

"On the contrary, Scott, I'd imagine it makes you feel utterly wretched," I say, rubbing my stinging cheek with the fingertips of my left hand.

"So then why –" Scott's question is entirely predictable, and I'm well prepared for it.

"Why do you think?" I glare at him. "What else could I do to make you feel as bad as I do? You and Jean are perfect; you're always so happy, you never have anything bad happen to you – or if you do, it always gets put right by something miraculous. Do you think Jean would even be with you today, if you weren't who you are? If Warren had been in the same situation,

I'd be dead, and I would have stayed dead, because I'm not Jean. The Phoenix Force would have passed me over – would have let me die – and nobody would have given a damn. Nobody. And it's not just her, Scott - if Warren had been you, he would have been saved from Apocalypse. We'd be perfect too, if we were you. But we're not, so we've had to suffer being changed and altered and rebuilt until we don't who the hell we are any more. Do you know how much that galls me, Scott Summers? Do you have the slightest idea how much I hate your perfect life sometimes? Do you know how much I envy you? No, I don't suppose you do, do you, since you're always whining about how awful your lot in life is. Well, I'll tell you something, Mr Summers – Warren and I would cut off our right hands to have what you and Jean have, so don't you dare tell me you've been dealt a bad hand in life. If Jean were me, she'd have been saved from living her life in someone else's body. If Warren were you, he'd still be himself. The Professor would have fallen over himself to protect his favourite students – but where Warren and me are concerned, he couldn't care less."

"That's not true, Betsy," Jean interjects. "The Professor cares for all of us –"

"So you say," I whisper, clutching at my sheets suddenly, as if I am afraid of what Jean might say.

"Charles cares for all of us, Betsy," Jean continues, unfazed. "He would have tried to help you, if he had a surefire way to reverse what the Hand had done to you - if he could have done anything, he would have. Don't you think he's stayed awake nights because of what you and Warren have been through because of him?"

"I know he has." My gaze returns to Scott, who has kept silent while Jean and I spar like duelling swordsmen, and he clears his throat quietly, raising himself up in his chair in order to speak again. "So why hasn't he ever done anything about it?"

"It's not just about you, or about Warren," Scott says slowly. "He would have done something for Rahne if he'd had the chance, but he didn't. Rahne never complained. Never threw herself at every man in the mansion because she couldn't stand to look at herself in the mirror every morning." I feel my breath catch in my throat, and Scott nods, as if his words have been vindicated by my actions. "Yes, Betsy, I know why you've done what you've done – it's not hard to guess the motives of someone who's been through what you've been through; you're not the only one who can guess why people act the way they do, you know. You wanted to prove to yourself that you were still able to make men want you - and you proved that, again and again. What good did it do you, really? I'll tell you how much, Betsy - none. None at all. All it really did was alienate you, make Jean hate you and make me feel awkward and embarrassed for finding you attractive. Was that what you wanted? Truly?" He pauses for a moment and folds his muscular arms across his chest. "I'd bet the Betsy Braddock Alex knew wouldn't have done that. He's told me about a woman who loved poetry and art and literature, who loved to dance and sing for no reason at all, and who loved a fifteen year old boy who had a crush on her with all her heart—"

"Shut up! Don't you mention Doug! Don't you dare mention Doug like that! You don't have the right –"

"I don't have the right?" Scott snaps suddenly. "I don't have the right to do what, Betsy? To remind you of what you are?"

"No," I whisper. "To remind me of what I've lost. Don't you think I do that every day anyway?" I blink back some tears and look down at my hands as they wring themselves out. "Get out."

Jean opens her mouth to try and salvage the situation. Ever the peacemaker, Jean? I send to her, sardonically. How very admirable of you.

"Get," I say slowly, my gaze boring into Scott's soulless glasses, "out."

Scott nods silently, aware that he's overstepped the mark for now, and Jean glances at me one last time, her eyes filled with regret and sadness.

"I'm sorry, Betsy," she whispers.

"I am, too," I say.

"We'll be back soon, all right?" she says softly, adjusting her blouse awkwardly and putting a hand to her forehead briefly, moving a small braid of flame-red hair out of her eyes.

"Do hurry back," I sneer. "This was such fun, after all... we really must do it again some other time, mustn't we?"

"That wasn't funny, Betsy," Scott says curtly. "We still need to talk about Rebecca. She won't go away, Betsy, as much as you wish she would. We need to know what you're going to do about her before we move her. Think about it, all right?"

"Fine. If it'll make you leave... I'll think about it, Scott. Satisfied?"

Scott is about to reply when Jean puts her hand on his arm and shakes her head silently. I can tell they are exchanging heated telepathic messages, and although the discussion lasts only a few seconds, it has a profound affect on Scott. He shakes his head and then takes a deep breath before turning towards me again. "For what it's worth, Betsy... I'm sorry I did this to you." Then they leave, and my room is quiet again.

The sobbing breaks the silence, though.

I'm not sure if I'm grateful for that or not...


	2. Chapter 2

I sit in silence for about half an hour, before I decide that I cannot simply wait for Scott to return. I have to leave this room – get out, find something to occupy myself, stretch my legs, something – in order to distract my mind. The bed groans as I shift my weight off it, and I stand slowly, painfully. My legs shake slightly as they struggle to support my weight, the muscles still unused to movement. Reaching for the cane that Henry had found for me, I grip its moulded handle and hobble slowly towards the door of my room, each step a labour in itself. I wonder how I am able to reach the doorway without screaming with pain and frustration, but I manage it, and eventually I step outside into the cooler air of the hallway. Thankfully, it is deserted, and I am able to make my way towards the end of the corridor, where the stairs await. It's a struggle, given that I have to switch hands in order to grip the banister and hold the cane at the same time, and it takes much longer than I anticipated, but sacrifices must be made, I suppose, before I can get anywhere.

The rec. room is just down the hall, and I can't sense any thoughts inside it, which is good – I don't want to talk to anyone at this point; not particularly. I just need some space to think, some time to myself, without an endless stream of people trouping past me with painted-on smiles that promise me love and support and never deliver – at best just dulling the pain until the next agonising memory stings its way to the surface of my mind. The pain coils inside my guts, like a scorpion trying desperately to escape its prison - my body; my flesh. My soul. This whole situation hurts just as much as the endless beatings I had to suffer while the Marauders were having their way with me - perhaps more, since those bruises have almost completely healed, but this situation will be with me for the rest of my life.

I shake my head to clear it of that particular thought, and move slowly towards the doorway of the rec. room, grasping the doorframe as I do so to steady myself before I walk over to the small bar positioned just to the side of the pool table. The gleaming beer taps reflect the morning light brightly and almost dazzle me with their brilliance... but then, I'm not interested in what I can get from those. No, I want something more substantial...

I reach the bar itself and move behind it, finding the almost-full bottle of Jack Daniels on the shelf containing most of the more powerful spirits. I find myself pouring a generous measure into a small glass, virtually filling it with golden brown liquid that almost shines in the harsh sunlight. Unhooking the bottle from its holder, I set it on the bar beside the glass, the cap still off so that I can smell the powerful odour of the liquid inside the bottle. Its fragrance is harsh and unpleasant, and my nose is unused to it, but that passes. I grip the glass and virtually throw its whole contents down my throat in one swig. Its comforting warmth hits the back of my throat instantly, lighting a brief but searing fire in my guts and sending some heat to my cold heart. I grimace with satisfaction, and pour myself some more almost immediately, sloshing the whiskey carelessly out of the bottle, spilling a small puddle of it onto the bar's surface and onto the shaking hand that holds the glass.

After all, if everyone else is going to abuse my body every which way, why shouldn't I join in?

The next glass comes more easily, and the next even easier than that, until my head is swimming with alcohol and the outside world has faded away to a large extent. The rec. room becomes my whole reality – the only place I'll ever need. My throat becomes numb to the searing warmth of the liquor, and the drinking becomes a comforting experience – the glass becomes like a dummy or a placebo, to make me feel better. I know it's a mistake, but I don't particularly care that much right now. I couldn't feel much worse than I do already, anyway...

"Ya know, Betts, I'd bet that that ain't exactly the answer you're lookin' for, is it?"

I'd sensed Logan a few doors down the hallway, but by this time, the drink has control of me, and I can't do much but sit on my stool and cry quietly, upset for no reason at all – for many reasons. Logan senses my incapacity and moves lithely towards me, his movements even, measured, like those of a panther. He's wearing the pale, sharp dew claw of a bear around his neck on a coarse piece of cord, and his usual ensemble of jeans, plaid shirt and faded brown leather jacket is in place. All that's missing is his Stetson and Jubilee, Shadowcat, or any of the other teenage girl sidekicks he seems to accumulate like other people accumulate stamps.

"What do you want, Logan?" I slur. I hadn't noticed the effect the liquor was having on my speech, not having anybody to talk to, but I notice it now. It's hard not to. I can see Logan noticing it right away, and his expression and emotions make me feel ashamed.

Wouldn't be the first time I've been ashamed of myself, though - that's for sure...

Gently, Logan moves the whiskey bottle away from me, and back towards the other side of the bar. "This ain't the answer, Betts – whatever the problem is," he says softly. "Take it from one who knows –"

"Please, Logan," I say quietly, "don't tell me you 'know how I feel'. For the last time... you don't. None of you do – and I'm tired of telling you that."

"No, kid, you're probably right. I don't know what the Marauders did to you, an' I'm not goin' to bother tryin' to understand that, because I can't, but what I do know is that losing yourself in booze won't make you feel any better. It'll seem like it does for a while, sure, but you start using that stuff as a crutch and everything goes to hell. Trust me." He throws his hands out to either side, suddenly exasperated. "God, Betsy! You should know what I'm talkin' about! Didn't you see what this crap did to your brother?"

"Maybe I did," I say, sipping the last few drops of whiskey from my glass, "but then again, maybe I didn't. You tell me."

"Damn it, Betsy, what kind of an answer is that?" Logan snarls furiously, his lip curling with anger. "Shouldn't what happened to Brian make you stop doin' this to yourself? Don't you want to avoid fallin' into the same trap?"

"Why?" My voice is soulless, empty. "We do seem to set a precedent for each other, after all. He became Captain Britain, and so did I. I lost what makes me who I am, and so did he, when he became Britanic. He got it back eventually, and so did I... eventually." I sigh, and reach insistently for the bottle of whiskey again, but Logan refuses to hand it to me. Seeing that he's not going to relent, I look at the bottom of my empty glass resignedly. "You might as well just give me that bottle now, you know. It's going to happen, whether you like it or not. Brian did it, and so I have to, too."

Logan shakes his head. "That's bullshit, Betsy, and you know it."

"You've never been a twin, Logan. Don't knock it till you've tried it." I rest my chin on my hand, sleepily propping my head up on the bar, until I look at Logan quizzically for a second. "Did Scott put you up to this? Did he ask you to come in here and do this to me?"

"One-Eye didn't do nothin'," Logan says assertively, moving his hand over mine reassuringly as he does so. I grip it as tightly as I would have Warren's hand, as if I could transfer some of Logan's formidable strength into my own body. "I wanted a beer, so I came to get one. And then I found you here getting blitzed on rocket fuel for... what reason again?"

"Scott and Jean," I sigh, dejectedly. "They want me to keep Rebecca."

"Well, she's your kid, ain't she?" Logan says. "What else can you do?"

"No," I insist, slamming the empty glass down on the bar's polished surface forcefully. "No! She's not 'my kid', any more than Amiko is yours."

"With one big difference," Logan says quietly. "Amiko ain't carryin' my genes. Rebecca's carryin' yours – and Cyke's genes, too. I'd say that makes her different, right?"

"Different?" I laugh bitterly. "There's an understatement."

"That ain't what I meant, an' you know it." Logan shakes his head, and touches his rough forehead with callused fingertips. "Look, Rebecca needs somebody to teach her that maybe what she used to be isn't what she should be, an' I guess you and Warren are the best two people to be doin' that.""

"Because we've all gone through the same thing, is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"In so many words." Logan shrugs his squat, muscular shoulders, and then rubs his grizzled face again with the palm of one hand. "I saw so many guys do things like Rebecca did when I worked with Creed and North, but I didn't think much of it at the time – I mean, I thought it was part o' the job, right? Nothin' to get worked up over. But it ain't, Betts - it ain't, I swear. It's a sickness, an' I don't want you to have to deal with it the way I did. I don't want you to suffer with her like I have with Creed. You have to teach Rebecca that the way she's doin' things right now is only goin' to hurt her – hurt her family – in the long run. You understand what I'm getting' at, Betts?"

"Yes, Logan, I understand. It's not hard to, when you tell me things." I deliberately leave the meaning of that statement up in the air, so that he can interpret it any way he wants to.

He takes the comment favourably, or so it would seem, and lifts one corner of his mouth in a half-smile. "Nice one, Betts," he says, touching the edge of his brow with a fingertip, in a good-humoured mock salute. "If I didnt know you better, I'd say you were tryin' to insult me. His laughter is scalpel-sharp, like the points of the gleaming-white canines which show beneath his cracked lips as they part. "You'll have to do better'n that, darlin'. I ain't been insulted that subtle-like in decades. Or so I'd imagine." He taps the side of his skull with a blunt forefinger. "Don't quite know for sure, you know?"

"I'm glad you appreciate it," I say listlessly, as I swirl the glass in my hand, in order to collect the last few disparate drops of liquor within it, but then I sigh sadly. "I really thought that getting this body back would be a new beginning for Warren and me, Logan." I sigh again, rubbing my eyes with my fingers. "Shows you what I know, doesn't it?"

Logan nods his understanding, despite my apparent change of direction. "I know, darlin' - I wish things coulda been the way you wanted." He bites his lip suddenly - something I've never seen the gruff-voiced little man do before. He's always been so self-assured, so confident of what he's going to say next, that this comes as a complete surprise. For a telepath, it's... disconcerting... to be surprised, to say the least.

And feeling disconcerted is the last sensation I need right now, I think. "I wish that, too. From the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to sleep, that's all I think about, Logan." I take a deep breath. "Is it so wrong for me to want to distance myself from what happened in the Bronx? Why should I keep a reminder of that time around?"

"Because she's a human bein'," Logan says bluntly. "She ain't a nice human bein' right now, granted, but she don't deserve to die just because Sinister grew her in a jar. One-Eye probably tried to tell you the same thing, right?"

I nod, dejectedly. "Yes, he did. He and Jean were in my room a few minutes ago, offering their support and unconditional love when it came to Rebecca – and besides that, they were trying to get me to come round to their way of thinking about what should be done with her."

Logan curves one side of his mouth up in a sad little smile. "Thought so," he says softly. "Cyke probably put both of those big All-American, Boy Scout feet of his right in his mouth, didn't he?"

"Not in so many words," I tell him, "but put it this way: he didn't exactly present a convincing case. He meant well – he always means well – but... I don't know what to do about Rebecca myself. How can he possibly know what the best course of action is for me, where she's concerned?"

"He doesn't," Logan shrugs, "but he means well, like you said. It's what the guy does. Don't be too hard on him, Betts – if he could fix everything for you, he'd do it even if it meant bleeding his own bones dry."

"I know," I reply, rubbing at my temples softly. "I know that. But how do you expect me to react when somebody does what he did to me? It's not as easy as you all seem to think, Logan!"

Logan looks at the surface of the bar for a moment or two, his hands grasping its edge and pushing his stool up onto its back legs. "This kinda thing never is, darlin'," he says quietly, his voice subdued. "Look, I might be the best there is at what I do... but what I do ain't family counselling." He smiles weakly at that subversion of his usual catchphrase, and then looks me directly in the eye. "You better go talk to Scotty-boy about all this, Betts. He's Rebecca's pa – he has a right to know what you're gonna do with her."

"I don't have much choice, do I?" I say listlessly. "The entire household seems to have decided she'd be an ideal new family member - what can I do against that kind of pressure?"

Logan looks deeply pained by what I have just said, as if I have jammed a knife right through the centre of his fast-healing heart. "Lizzie, you know that ain't true," he says, his voice clearly full of pain. "When we found you in the Bronx, I could smell what they'd done to you, even if I couldn't see it – I could smell what kind of a stink they'd left on you. Made me so angry I couldn't think straight for a while. I wanted to slit their throats for it – make 'em pay the worst price they could for hurtin' you. And you think I ain't got misgivin's about that girl?" He grips my hand again, a little more tightly than before, and brushes my face gently with the other. "Believe me, darlin', I got plenty of 'em – I saw what she did to ya. She's a fighter, no doubt about it – but she ain't got no direction any more. Take her away from Sinister like we did, and she ain't got nothin' to depend on –"

"Except me," I sigh. "How very convenient." I look up at my old friend, suddenly feeling very confused and alone. "Why did I save her, Logan? Why did I bring her here, instead of throwing her in the nearest prison and forgetting about her?"

"Because that ain't your way, darlin'," Logan replies quietly, his voice sounding more than a little sad, mirroring the thoughts I can sense spilling from his skull. "And because you knew that nobody else, outside of those white-coats at Ravencroft, could deal with somebody like her." He brings my hand, still in his, to the centre of my chest, just above my sternum. "You got a good heart in there, kid. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise." He squeezes my hand again, and nods towards the door. "I gotta go now, Betts. The ice cube wanted to go watch that new Angelina Jolie film, and I said I'd chaperone him." He grins, albeit in a subdued kind of way. "Now do you see why I needed that beer?"

That brings a small smile to my face, too. "Yes, Logan. Bobby can be a handful, can't he?" I pause for a moment. "Go. Have a good time. If I need you again, I'll call you. I promise."

Logan relaxes, his shoulders freeing themselves from the knots I could tell they were caught up in, and he dsimounts from his stool. "You sure you're gonna be okay?"

"Yes, Logan. I'll be fine. And I'll talk to Scott, if I can muster up the energy."

"That's my girl," Logan replies, touching my shoulder briefly. "See ya in a couple of hours, darlin'." He scratches behind one ear, and then looks me right in the eye. "Good luck, kid." He reaches up behind his neck and unhooks the bear's claw from around his neck before pressing it into my hand. "Here. Take it. It's always brought me good luck." He shrugs at my evidently quite confused expression. "Call it a gift from one old friend to another. You look like you could use it right now."

And without another word, he is gone.

I sit there on my stool for another five minutes or so, dangling the small pendant between my fingers, examining the way it catches the light of the sun that spills through the windows. Its surface initially appears to be dull and lifeless, but it reveals a myriad of extra colours when it is held in the right way. Like Logan himself, there is more to it than meets the eye.

Eventually, I close my hand around it and grip my stick with the other, before hobbling slowly out of the room and into the hallway. No sense in putting this off again, I think bitterly.

It doesn't take me long to find Scott and Jean – they have a unique telepathic resonance that shines like a beacon in pitch darkness – but it takes me rather longer to get to them. They are in their home, the wooden boathouse on the edge of Lake Breakstone, and they have apparently been arguing - their minds are simmering with residual traces of anger. Perversely, that brings a small smile of satisfaction to my pained face – and an immediate, stabbing sensation of shame to my heart.

I knock on the door of the boathouse after I have caught my breath, and Jean answers the door, her face a little more haggard than I'm used to seeing it, and she smiles wanly. "Betsy," she says perfunctorily. "What are you doing here?"

"You know very well what I'm doing here, Jean," I say shortly, the pain in my legs making my voice a little sharper than I'd intended. "We have some talking to do. Wouldn't you agree, Scott?" I look over to where Scott is sitting, and I can see that he, too, is not looking as fresh as he usually does – his frame is sagging slightly, as if perhaps he is weary or tired. Both of them look a far cry from the facade they usually present.

They look like real people, in the middle of a real crisis.

Welcome to the real world, Mr and Mrs Summers - don't cut yourself while you're here...

Scott raises an eyebrow. "Good to see you, too, Betsy." He pushes himself off his chair and helps me to sit down, taking my stick from me and putting it down on the coffee table, and beckons Jean over to sit in the chair beside me, while he takes the one opposite me.

"You didn't answer my question, Scott," I say quietly, when we are all sat down. "We have something to talk about, don't we?" For a moment, I smile thinly. "Perhaps we can get through it without physical violence this time?"

"That's not funny, Betsy," Scott replies in a sour tone.

"That's because it wasn't meant to be," I tell him coldly. "I'm not going to say anything to anyone else, because I'm well aware of what I said to provoke you. I just want to be sure that you won't do anything similar to me – or your wife – again."

"How dare you ask me something like that?" Scott snaps suddenly, angrily. "I know I did wrong. Is that what you want me to admit? Fine, I admit it - I hate myself right now for what I did to you. It showed me I'm not as good a person as I thought I was. Is that what you want to hear?"

"On the contrary, Scott, I'd rather not hear that. I know what kind of person you are. I know what you went through right after you'd done what you did. But then again, I also know that it gets easier every time you do it. All I want is reassurance that you'll never do that again – not to me, and not to Jean. Because if you can't do that, then there is no way in Hell that I'm letting you anywhere near my child, whatever I decide to do with her."

Scott looks at Jean for a second, his lips folded over his teeth briefly, as if he is observing her face, and then he looks back at me, his obscured gaze unwavering. "I'll never do that again," he says, his voice regaining its strength slowly. "I swear it on my mother's grave."

The emotion in his voice is such that I know he means every word, and I don't need my telepathy to verify his statement. I don't know if I should be surprised... after all, this is Scott - I don't think the man is physically capable of lying. Once he's finished speaking, I let out a long exhalation of breath, and rub my face with my hands, relieved.

"Thank you, Scott," I say quietly. "Thank you."

There is a long moment of silence after that, before Scott says "We still need that talk, Betsy. About Rebecca."

I take a deep breath. This is where Logan's advice comes into its own, I suppose. I clutch the dew claw in my hand a little more tightly, and begin to speak. "Yes, Scott, we do - which is why I came down here..."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is essentially an interlude, and features a change of perspective from Psylocke to Cyclops.

Jean and I came back to the boathouse ten minutes ago, after our... less than successful... visit to Betsy's bedside, and we haven't said a word to each other since we left her room.

Don't think I can blame her, really - after what I just did, I'm not sure I'd want to talk to myself, either. There are no excuses for it, and I'm not going to beg, borrow or steal one to exonerate myself from the guilt and remorse I feel. The physical violence I used appals me now, but that doesn't change the fact that I used it, and there is a sickened sensation in the pit of my stomach - a realisation, and a cold, burning fear - that I might use it again.

Simply put, that frightens me.

It frightens me a lot.

But I can't worry about that now... I've got more than a few bridges to mend. I drag myself off the couch and trudge upstairs to our bedroom, where Jean has been ever since we got back. I knock on the door, and say softly, "Jean? We... need to talk."

"Go away, Scott," she replies quietly. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

Through our psychic rapport, I say I know you don't want to talk, but I do, Jean - I have to. What happened in the house -

\- Was all a big mistake, and you'll never do it again? Jean's telepathic voice is bitter, and harsh with disbelief. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the thoughts of a confirmed wife-beater say those exact words, and then do precisely the opposite, I'd be a rich woman by now.

Come on, Jean, I think to her, touching the door's polished surface with my forehead for a moment or two. You know me. You know my thoughts. Can't you tell I'm telling the truth?

Jean comes to the door, and flings it open so that she can bring her gaze level with mine. Her piercing glare is oddly muted behind the red crystal that I see the world through, but I can feel enough of her anger to know her intentions.

"Don't give me that crap, Scott Summers," she snaps angrily. "Don't you tell me to just - just read your thoughts and be done with it - if you want to talk so much, then let's talk, like normal people are supposed to do."

"She got to you too, then?" I say quietly, with what I suppose you could call a certain degree of prescience. Jean shrugs, noncommittally.

"Perhaps she did. But that doesn't worry me so much as what I just saw you do, Scott. How do I know you won't do that to me, or to Ororo, or even Kitty, if we say something to upset you?"

"You know me better than I know myself sometimes, Jean," I tell her. "You know that's not something I'm very proud of. There's no way I'd do that to anybody else again. I just..." My voice falters for a moment, my throat tightening uncomfortably as the words refuse to come. "She just... " I run my hands through my hair and look at the ceiling for a moment, exasperated by my inability to get my feelings across using simple words, instead of thoughts. "She didn't understand what happened then – she made me feel as if what my mother did had no meaning except rejection. You know how much I miss her, Jean - Betsy made it sound like she pushed Alex and me out of that plane because she didn't want us any more - as if we'd been unwanted from the moment we'd been born. Do you know how much that hurt me, Jean?" I sigh unhappily, all-too-aware that I'm not explaining myself well at all. "Betsy knew – and she knew right where to hit me, too. All that time I spent trying to accept what happened went out the door, and I felt like that scared little kid all over again. What I did... I haven't got an excuse for it, and I'm not going to try to find one. I'm just... trying to find a way of telling you why I did it in the first place." The vocal repetition of my private thoughts eases the icy self-disgust that nestles sharply in the pit of my stomach, but, as I'd expected, it doesn't leave me completely...

... as well it shouldn't. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, after all. I suppose the Professor would be glad to know I learnt that, at least, from the history syllabus that he taught me when I was just a kid... he'd probably tell me that an appreciation for past mistakes turns a good field commander into a great one. Funny... I don't feel particularly great right now.

Jean shakes her head, causing her seemingly never-ending waves of red hair to fall on either side of her face. "I know what you went through, Scott. I know what Betsy did to you. But you haven't been through what she went through, have you?" She sighs. "Don't you think she deserves better than what we both did to her? My God, Scott, we're supposed to be her friends - and you say you hit her for not understanding? How the hell can you say that with a straight face? Neither of us have the slightest idea of what she went through." Jean must notice my face creasing questioningly, because she pauses for a moment and then continues, saying "No, Scott, I can't read her memories of that time - not completely, anyway. I did catch vague snatches of what happened to her when she talked about it, though -" She pauses, seemingly to compose herself. "And from what I could tell, that's all I want to see. She's telling the truth, Scott - we have no idea what happened in the Bronx. We have absolutely no idea how cruel they were to her. To have her friends treat her like that too..." She shakes her head again, a little more emphatically this time. "Well, it's no wonder she's acting the way she is, put it that way."

Jean's point makes a lot of sense. It makes me feel wretched for my overzealous attitude, and, inevitably, that brings on the old Summers guilt complex - something I often regret, but which frequently helps me to see things with more clarity than this visor of mine sometimes allows. I shift on my feet and run my hand down my cheeks, pulling the skin taut for a moment or two before I feel confident enough to respond. "Where is she now?"

Jean tilts her head to one side and closes her eyes for a second, her fingers at her temples. "The rec. room. She's with Logan, I think."

"We should go to her -" I begin hesitantly.

Jean's eyes open, and she purses her lips. "Right now, Scott, that's the last thing we should do. I can virtually guarantee you that she wouldn't listen to either of us, no matter what we tried to tell her. Better to let us all cool off and start over, all right?" Her expression hardens, and she looks me right in the eye, her gaze steely and determined. "It might give us some time to talk everything over between ourselves, because we… really… need to talk about this, Scott."

"Which part of 'this' do you mean?" I ask, a cautious edge in my tone.

"Your new 'daughter', Scott!" Jean explodes angrily. "Don't you think we should have talked a little more about what she meant to us both before we tried to tell Betsy what to do with her?"

Jean's fury takes me aback a little; while I know Jean has a formidable temper and the power to back it up – just ask Prism or Sabretooth how far Jean is willing to go in order to prove a point – I've never seen her so angry before, least of all over a person. "Jean," I begin slowly, "I thought we'd gone over that enough before we went to see her –"

"Don't you assume anything about what I think, Scott Summers," Jean snaps. "We might be linked, but that doesn't mean you get every single thought I have." She pushes the forefinger of her right hand, with its red-painted nail, into the centre of my chest, her anger bubbling at the fringes of my mind. "An hour's discussion over some morning coffee is barely enough time for me used to this. Didn't you listen to what I told Betsy, Scott? Were you somewhere else when Rachel arrived? I had to work for months to accept what she was, and now I'm supposed to come to terms with Rebecca in one hour? Jesus Christ, Scott, I could barely get used to the idea of a new pet in that time! Is that all you think Rebecca is – some kind of puppy that we can train to play nicely with the rest of us?"

"That's not what I think at all – and in case you hadn't noticed, this isn't exactly a cakewalk for me either, Jean," I retort sharply – angry myself, now. "You think it's easy for me to know that Sinister is still playing those games with me – and people I care about – even now he's got his 'heir'? Hell, he's got two of them now, and he still won't leave us alone! You think it's easy for me to see what the Marauders did to Betsy, Jean? She wouldn't have even been there if not for me! She wouldn't have been raped if I hadn't completely failed to – to – help her!"

I can feel my hands curling angrily into fists, my fingernails digging deeply into my palms. The warm stickiness of blood is only a few moments of sustained pressure away, I can feel it. "Rebecca is my responsibility, Jean – I owe it to Betsy to tray and make her the opposite of everything Sinister wanted her to be. I owe it to Betsy to try and repair whatever damage he did to her."

"Well, that's…" Jean stops in mid-sentence, glancing at the ceiling before speaking again. "Don't you ever get tired of this, Scott?" she asks abruptly, in a hopeless tone of voice.

"Tired?" I repeat, a little confused. "Tired of what?"

"Tired of finding out you have a new child, and not even knowing where they came from," Jean says quietly. "Doesn't it ever bother you that you and I have kids through everything but our own love? Why can't we have a child ourselves, instead of having someone like Sinister create one for us? Why is it other people have had to suffer so we can have a family? Why is that, Scott?" She pauses and steeples her hands, looking at the point where her index fingers meet for a moment. "Are we such bad parents that we have to have surrogates for everything?" Her shoulders slump, as if in defeat. "Are we such awful people that we have to get things through other people getting hurt?"

"No, Jean, we're not bad people. We're good parents – look at how we turned Rachel and Nathan's lives around," I say, attempting to sound reassuring. Evidently I'm not succeeding, because Jean looks decidedly unconvinced.

"And you think we can do that with Rebecca, just like that, don't you?" she says flatly, one eyebrow raised sceptically – cynically, almost. "She's not like Rachel or Nathan, Scott – even I can see that!"

"I know that, Jean," I say, my voice restrained. "But I have to try."

"And if you trying to help her hurts Betsy even more?" Jean asks flatly. She is pacing a little, as if she is a caged panther, ready to unsheathe her claws. "What then?" She throws her hands out to either side of her body. "Well, Scott? What would you do then?"

I shrug. "Then I back off." I rub the part of my forehead just above the bridge of my nose, a sharp pain suddenly bleeding into my skull from deep inside my head. I think I can feel one of my migraines coming on – then again, it might just be Jean's mind tweaking my pain centres to influence me somehow. I don't think she'd resort to something like that with me, but then again, this whole situation has left me unsure of a lot of things. "I'm not a jailer, Jean. I don't want Betsy to feel like I've trapped her somehow. I want to help her – I'm just not sure how to do it."

"We all want to help her, Scott," Jean says quietly, her shoulders rising and falling slowly as she takes a deep breath. She looks down for a moment or two, her eyes following the pattern of the floorboards before they return to looking at me. "But you won't help her by forcing that girl on her, like she hasn't got a choice." She pauses again, biting her lip and wringing her hands together hard. "It's not right, Scott. It's not right, and I can't let it go on."

I'm about to protest (protest what? I'm not sure. Perhaps I just wanted to get the last word in), but then I nod, silently, in agreement. She has a very good point.

Suddenly there comes a knock at the door. Jean looks round at me, her face suddenly bleached of colour. "It's Betsy," she whispers. "Stay there." She moves towards the front door, and opens it. Sure enough, standing there in the porch, looking very tired and in pain, is Betsy, leaning on her cane. The dark circles round her eyes are more pronounced in the grey light of the porch, making her look like more of a wraith than she has done in the past few days (which is saying something, I assure you).

Jean makes the first move. "Betsy," she says quietly. "What are you doing here?

"You know very well what I'm doing here, Jean," Betsy replies, her lip curling in an expression of disdain. "We have some talking to do." She pauses, and looks over in my direction, her blue eyes homing in on mine like a hawk on a mouse. "Wouldn't you agree, Scott?"

I swallow uncomfortably and nod. _Time to pay the piper, Slim,_ I tell myself resolutely. _Better not screw it up this time._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Psylocke's POV for this chapter.

Rebecca is sleeping, still, her scarlet eyes closed and her chest rising and falling softly as she dreams. I know this because I am standing over her in the med-lab, Scott and Jean about a metre or so behind me. She is completely sedated and harmless, but I can barely suppress the desire to back away, to run, that burns in my guts – the need to escape this most physical reminder of my time in the Bronx is almost overwhelming. Paradoxically, my hands keep clenching and unclenching sporadically, wanting absurdly to wrap themselves around her perfect, lily-white neck and choke the life out of her, as she once tried to do to me. Walking towards the sleeping form of my daughter, my stick clicking against the cold linoleum tiling of the med-lab, I have to suppress those urges – both of them – in order to get within three feet of her.

"She's… beautiful, isn't she?" I say, flatly, my hand reaching out to grip the side of the bed, so as to take the pressure off my legs and my stick for a moment. It's purely a statement of fact on my part, but I suppose it might make Jean and Scott feel a little less ill at ease. Jean comes forward slightly and puts her hand on my shoulder, her fingers hesitantly closing over my arm. I don't think she was prepared for that particular response – she doesn't speak for a second or two.

"Yes, Betsy, she is," she agrees quietly, after a moment's pause. Sensibly, she doesn't say any more about that, instead stepping back a pace to let me look my daughter over again. It takes a few minutes before she feels confident enough to speak again. "Hank told us he wanted to keep Rebecca here for some more tests… he said to tell you that he wants to check her for any genetic defects, or chromosomal disorders –"

"He won't find any," I whisper sharply, before Jean can finish speaking, and I can sense her confusion even before I finish speaking. Turning towards her again, I gesture with my free hand at the prostrate form behind me. "Oh, don't look so shocked, Jean. I know what Hank will find – even if I don't have the faintest idea about science, I know what kind of a man Nathaniel Essex is. He doesn't like to make mistakes – don't you think he would have killed Rebecca himself, if my genes had failed to take with Scott's?" I snort with contempt, glancing down at Rebecca's sleeping form for a moment or two. "He wouldn't have let her live if she didn't measure up to his standards."

Scott moves closer to Rebecca's bedside, and gently touches her face with his fingertips. "Funny," he murmurs, his hand curling into a fist when it leaves his daughter's skin. He doesn't elaborate on that simple statement, which surprises me, slightly.

"Funny?" I reply in a sour tone, my eyebrow raised. "Funny what?"

"I never thought of her like that," Scott says. "Didn't think Sinister would do something like that, either. He's always said to me that my genes were too good to waste." That causes me to laugh, bitterly.

"Maybe he thought that once they were mixed with mine, they became slightly less than that?" I suggest, my voice flat. "He did say that he was just… experimenting… with my genes – he wanted to see what the Otherworldly factors in my DNA might do to yours. He didn't really want to achieve a lot when he created Rebecca, I don't think – not really. The fact that he got such an effective Marauder out of the whole deal must have been as much a surprise to him as it was to us." What I've just said causes me to pause for a moment and reconsider my words a little more carefully. "No. I don't think he was surprised, actually. He knew what he wanted, and he got it. And damned be everyone else who got in his way."

There is a momentary flash of pain in Scott's mind, and his lip twists in sudden agony. "Damn it all to hell," he says, in a hoarse tone of voice. "I should have stopped him." He almost throws his fist into the nearest wall, but then folds his lolling arm against his chest and bites his lip until he is sure that he won't do anything stupid. "I should have been there!"

"Yes. You should have been there, but self-flagellation won't change the past, Scott," I tell him, bluntly, the forefinger of my right hand jabbing against his chest. "It won't erase what happened. At least you actually have a choice of whether or not you want to deal with this. I don't. Be grateful for what you have, Scott."

Scott scratches behind his left ear with the fingers of his right hand, and nods resignedly. "Yeah," he says, looking at his feet for a second or two. "I guess not. So – what do we do with her, Betsy?"

"Logan told me that Rebecca was my responsibility," I say quietly, prompting a little moment of surprise from both Scott and Jean's thoughts. "He told me that Rebecca didn't deserve to die just because she'd been grown in a laboratory." I turn towards them again, and sigh softly. "He told me that I'd have to be the one to teach her that what she was isn't what she should be – that she shouldn't be victimised for something she had no control over."

"And how do you feel about that, Betsy?" Jean asks gently, even though I'm certain that she already knows my answer to the question. She's just using those infernal psychology lessons of hers on me, in order to get me to give voice to my feelings myself – yet again.

"Angry," I reply, my voice little louder than a whisper. "Confused. Depressed. Afraid – terrified, even. Take your pick." I sigh, running my free hand over my face in order to hide the guilty rage in my eyes. "Why should I care about her? How could I? She tried to kill me, Jean! I tried to kill her! Does that sound like the beginnings of a happy family to you?"

"Extenuating circumstances," Jean says simply, as if that one phrase will wipe away all the pain and make everything all better, like some all-purpose metaphysical Band-Aid. "She was being controlled by Sinister, and you weren't exactly at your best then, either. But that doesn't mean that the two of you can't move past that and try to work this whole mess out, I think."

"That's a very noble sentiment, Jean," I say, quietly. "Are you so sure that I could keep that up? I don't think I could – not if I'm honest with myself."

"You're wrong, Betsy," Scott says, equally quietly. "You're a hell of a lot stronger than I would be in the same situation. You're here, aren't you?"

"And what does that prove, Scott?" I ask, my voice hoarse. "That I can walk? That you can get me to go wherever you want me to go? What?" Scott smiles a small, sad little smile and gestures at his daughter with a strangely muted movement of his hand.

"It proves," and he pauses momentarily, as if to compose himself, "that you can stand to look at what you said you hated. It proves that you're stronger than you think you are. That you can take our bull and still tell us to screw ourselves sideways." He smiles again, a little more sheepishly this time. "Most of the others would just let us talk until our tongues snapped off – but you? You told us exactly what you thought, and you didn't hold back, either." He pauses again, and touches my shoulder for a second or two, before he inhales deeply and continues with what he has to say. "You have an incredible strength inside you, Betsy. Nobody's disputing that, and Rebecca needs you to use that strength to help her see what's right and wrong."

"I'm glad you're so confident in me," I say, hesitantly, "but I think you overestimate what I'm capable of, Scott. How am I supposed to do what you think it is that I'm so very able to do, when everything I am says that I should do the exact opposite? How am I supposed to move past that?"

"Nobody's expecting you to do that straight away, Betsy," Jean says slowly, "but with time, I hope that you'll be able to let go of what you're feeling now. It's not impossible."

"Thank you," I reply, trying my best to force a small smile of gratitude onto my face, without much success. Still, there is more sincerity in my voice than there has been for a long time – at least when I've had to speak to these two – so that, if nothing else, can be counted as progress, I suppose. "Will you… do something for me, Jean?"

"Anything, Betsy. Name it," Jean says assertively, taking a step forwards in order to underscore her words, and grasping my hand with her long, kind fingers.

"I want you to see what Rebecca is at this point," I say firmly, fixing her eyes with a level, unblinking gaze. Jean's face twists with confusion, and she frowns, inclining her head slightly to one side in puzzlement. An odd sight, especially where a telepath is concerned…

"I don't see what you –"

"I won't do what you're asking if you don't do this for me, Jean," I tell her, shifting in place and moving my stick from one hand to the other. "I don't want you to have any illusions about what Rebecca is, right at this moment. I don't want you thinking that she's going to do exactly what you want her to do right away. And I especially don't want you to think that you can simply turn her into an obedient little New Mutant, like Doug or 'Yana. That's the last thing she should be – I won't have her tear this house down from the inside out…" My chest heaves involuntarily, and I have to take a moment to steady myself before I can continue. "I won't have her destroy this – not Warren, not this house, not any of it. I won't have my family taken from me. Not again." I place a forefinger on the centre of Rebecca's forehead, just below her hairline. "I want you to see what Sinister put in here before you do anything else, Jean." I glance over at Scott, who has stood back a little, his arms apprehensively crossed over his chest. "I want you to see as well, Scott. You are her father, after all…" A harsh look comes over my face. "You of all people should have no illusions about what Rebecca is."

Scott purses his lips and grits his teeth for a moment or two before speaking again. When he does, his voice is just a little less assured than the confident, strong tone he was using before. "All right, Betsy. I guess I owe it to you," he says quietly. "Jean?"

Jean reaches out and grips Scott's hand with her own. "Brace yourself, Slim," she says, squeezing his fingers tightly, before placing her free hand on my daughter's forehead. She really doesn't need to do that (physical contact isn't strictly necessary for telepaths, after all) but most of us find it helps to facilitate this whole process somehow, rather like a placebo often helps to stimulate the body's immune systems. In this case, especially, I think she needs all the help she can get – I know I do. The simple act of maintaining a mental link with my daughter for more than a few seconds is going to be a tremendously draining experience, but I will have to suffer through it for now – there are things that need to be addressed, and my personal limits will have to be put aside for the moment, however much I don't want them to be.

I place my hand on her forehead, next to Jean's fingers, and I can feel my mind sliding out of my body and into Rebecca's skull, my thoughts becoming like a butterfly in flight as it does so. The wings of that butterfly are a little more ragged than usual, but at least I can fly again. Small comfort, I suppose, but I'll take what I can get…

There is the usual split-second of disorientation that comes with entering another sentient being's mind, and then I am fully alert, my psychic "eyes" open and seeing what lies in wait for me here inside my daughter's mind. Even though it's supposedly dormant underneath the metric tonne of sedatives that Henry and the Professor have given my daughter, I already know that Rebecca's brain is still capable of dreaming, and that's what surrounds Jean, Scott and me right at this moment. We are stood on a burning wasteland which is strewn with mangled bodies, the sky above us a sick, jaundiced yellow, with patchy, malformed clouds scudding across it every so often. Their angular surfaces are pale as corpse-flesh, and yet are still crackling with electricity. There is a heavy metallic scent in the air – a smell I recognise as that of recently spilt blood and jagged, ripped skin. It hangs thickly in the air like a swarm of rapacious, carnivorous insects, its cloying fragrance clinging brutally to my body, slithering against my skin as if I've been immersed in a pit full of cockroaches.

To my right, Jean is almost overcome with the stink, her thoughts indicating how horrified she is with this whole scenario. She composes herself and murmurs calming mantras, until the disgust I can sense spilling from her thoughts is suppressed.

"Not pleasant, is it, Jean?" I say flatly. Jean looks at me with tear-filled eyes, and shakes her head.

"No," she says. "No, it's not. Where are we? Why would Rebecca be thinking of it?"

"I have no idea," I say, "But I think we can get some answers from them." I point over towards the horizon to my left, where a horde of misshapen but evidently very dangerous creatures is advancing on a small group of people, who Jean instantly recognises, as does Scott.

"The Marauders," Jean whispers. She points hurriedly towards the centre of the group, where she has seen Rebecca's dream-self, flanked on one side by Scalphunter, and on the other by Harpoon. "We have to get closer. We have to help her –"

"Help her what, Jean? Help her escape?" I almost snort with contempt. "We're in her mind, for God's sake – where would she go?" Feeling Jean's thoughts take a nosedive in mood, I sigh, and shake my head. "Let's just see where this goes, and take it from there." I move towards the cloud of dust that is being kicked up by the monstrous dream-creatures' clawed feet, and by the Marauders' smooth, co-ordinated battle manoeuvres. Even from this distance, I can see Riptide swirling through the massive creatures' midst, cutting a bloody swathe with his resin stars and the wickedly curved kukri blades in his hands; a swathe which his fellow Marauders are using as a beachhead of sorts. They follow in his wake, their powers or energy weapons keeping the creatures at bay, and their arms painted crimson up to the elbows by the monsters' blood and internal organs.

Rebecca is the same, her aggressive telepathy and optic blasts combining to make her almost unstoppable. She laughs as the monsters scream in pain and fear, and yells out a scream of triumph – a raucous expression of the joy of battle.

I remember that feeling. I felt it many times when I was in Kwannon's body. It still pulls at my mind sometimes, when I'm asleep, or when I've been training hard in the Danger Room. It reminds me of what I used to be. What I never want to be again. And it gives me an incentive, however small, to try to change this bloodthirsty neophyte Marauder that I see before me into some kind of rational human being, no matter how repugnant the idea is to me.

Rebecca howls her battle cry again, and plunges her fist deep into the sternum of a nearby beast, puncturing flesh and muscle and shattering bone with frightening ease. She spins on the point of her left foot in a perfect rendition of a jiujutsu kick, hitting her assailant on the side of the face and sending the creature staggering away, coughing up its own guts in a bloody cascade.

And then, in one terrible moment, I see him materialise in the sky like Odin or Zeus – or, more appropriately, given his vocation, like Hades or Set. Towering over the battlefield, he has a hand-span of hundreds of feet, if not hundreds of miles. His smile is as predatory as his children have been on the field of battle – perhaps more so. His sharp fangs glittering in the burning sun, he looks down at the Marauders and then speaks, his voice as loud as thunder.

"Well done, my Marauders. I am pleased with your efforts. These… creatures… were not worthy to survive, and you proved them thus." With a wave of his hand the creatures vanish, and the Marauders are left alone, the blood-splattered ground the only testament to what had been happening only moments before.

"Well, at least we know what she dreams about," Scott says sardonically. "He didn't even let her have her sleep to herself." He clenches his fists and glares at the piece of sky where Sinister had appeared. I can feel the very obvious pain that he is going through; it bleeds off his thoughts in crimson rivers, as if he has had his heart torn out. I suppose this must be a new experience for him, seeing a child of his so under the thumb of somebody else – Rachel was a Hound, true, but he never really saw that; he only heard about it from her (doubtlessly, she left out the parts where she tore out mutants' throats with her teeth simply because she was told to… there are no such comforts here). Rebecca is a slave now – right where he can see it – and it tears him up inside.

Jean isn't much better. "God…" she whispers. "I had no idea, Betsy. I really didn't."

"No," I say simply. "No, you didn't, did you?" I shrug emotionlessly, my eyes focused entirely on where my daughter is standing. "But you do now. So – what do we do with her, Scott?"

Scott twists his lips to one side in discomfort at my repetition of his earlier question, and then folds his arms across his muscular chest. "We have to reach her now – right now – or we'll never reach her," he says flatly, before his face is overcome with grim determination that I would have thought more appropriate if it had come from Cable. Like father, like son, I suppose; more than Scott would sometimes like to admit, I'd bet.

"Right," Jean says, steeling herself visibly. There's some of her old fire there already, I can see it. More importantly, I can feel it, too, which is good. I have a feeling that we'll need all the strength we can get, if we're going to do what Scott and Jean seem to think is going to be so very easy. "I think I can get to her a lot more easily in here than I could out there in the real world. Like you said, Betsy – where can she go?"

I'm about to nod my agreement when the scenery shifts like a blurred watercolour, and the landscape we're on twists in on itself and disintegrates, leaving us floating in blackness, for a period of perhaps a minute or so. Evidently Sinister's most pressing dream-message has been passed on, and Rebecca is moving onto the next in the library of broken records that Sinister has installed in her mind.

Sure enough, the image that takes form in front of our eyes is an image of the inside of Sinister's base. Almost immediately, I see Scalphunter across the room from me. He is busy at a table, assembling and disassembling various weapons with a repetitively organised rhythm. His appearance fills me with an irrational panic, and I have to concentrate to remind myself that this is not really him, that he can't hurt me anymore, and that I will be safe from him here. Nevertheless, I still have to take a few steps backwards, to stumble away from him as fast as I can. Evidently I haven't quite convinced myself that I'm free from him yet.

Jean sees me staggering away from Scalphunter, and moves towards me quickly, wrapping those comforting thoughts of hers around me gently. "Easy," she murmurs quietly, but firmly, into my ear. "Take it easy, Betsy. He can't hurt you here. I won't let him hurt you. I promise." Holding onto me until I have stopped struggling, her mind like a calming hand, Jean continues to whisper soothing words to me, as if I am a child woken by a nightmare – which, in a way, I suppose I am. "He's just a dream." She unfurls her psychic arms from around me and walks over to where Scalphunter is sitting. Raising a hand, she waves it in front of Scalphunter's face, smiling when he doesn't react. "See? You're safe from him here."

Suddenly, Scalphunter grabs Jean by the throat. I think it's safe to say that nobody, least of all Jean, expected that. "'Safe' don't come into it, toots," he leers, his eyes flashing with malicious intent. "You think Sinister would leave this place undefended?" He snorts with brutish laughter. It sends a revolted shiver down my spine; I know that laughter far, far too well. Bloodstained nights and pain-wracked days were usually what followed its bass rumble, and I can feel my stomach churning again, in remembrance of past agonies. His words have an ambiguous double-meaning to them, too – he could be referring to the base itself, or he could, as is more likely, be referring to mental defences that Sinister might well have left in Rebecca's mind to prevent people like us from interfering.

Unfortunately, it seems there's only one way to find out.

Scott rushes forward to try to help his wife, but Scalphunter swats him aside like a particularly irritating flea, sending him crashing into the wall of the base. He lands with a crunching sound that echoes a little more than it should. Propped up against it, he tries to rise and then thinks better of it for a moment or two, his mind still reeling. It's as if he's been hit with a sledgehammer in the back of the head. I can feel his pain pulsing at the back of my mind, a dull ache that won't go away no matter how hard I concentrate.

"Don't even think about it, punk," Scalphunter snarls. "This ain't your fight." Scott picks himself up from where he was thrown, his balance a little off, and staggers a few steps towards Scalphunter, who howls with laughter. "God, you're pathetic," he sneers, before hurling Jean to one side and advancing on Scott as he stands virtually helpless. "I'm almost ashamed to call you my father." Scalphunter's eyes glow crimson for a moment or two, and the glow envelops him, his body transmogrifying itself into a smaller, more slender shape, his long hair changing colour from its night-black raven hue to a golden blonde shade.

When the glow fades away, Rebecca stands revealed, her lithe, sinuous frame clothed in a dark blue singlet and her blonde hair flowing freely around her face. "I smell invaders," she coos in a sugary voice, with a frightening glint in her eye. "Hello, Mother. Brought some friends to see me?" I don't answer her. To do so would be pointless, since she quite obviously knows who Scott and Jean are – to think that Sinister would not have given her the knowledge of what her genetic donor looked like would be foolish, to say the least. He has a habit of overloading his charges with information animal, vegetable and mineral, especially where projects of interest are concerned.

Rebecca scowls when I don't answer her, and walks towards me, her eyes flashing with nascent anger. "Why haven't you let me go yet?" she snaps impatiently, like a toddler denied a toy, or a favourite sweet. "Why am I still here?" She points towards the ceiling, indicating that she means the mansion, rather than her own mind. Both are prisons in their own fashion, however, so the statement is accurate whichever way she meant it.

"Because you're dangerous," I tell her, flatly.

Rebecca raises her eyebrows and smiles broadly, as if I have just stumbled upon some universal truth. "Truth hurts, doesn't it?" she says, with a touch of triumphant superiority in her voice. For a second or two, I think that she must have got that from Sinister, but then it occurs to me that it's perfectly plausible that that's part of me talking. Somehow that notion offers cold comfort.

"Do you really think you're the first person to tell me that?" I snort, contemptuously. "Don't flatter yourself, Rebecca; I've heard that before, from hundreds of people more experienced than you."

Jean finds her voice again, finally, and manages to say "Rebecca, we just want to talk to you about –" before Rebecca waves a hand to silence her, throwing up what looks like a steel grille, forged of razor-wire, between herself and her "aunt", which then proceeds to multiply in length and breadth to either side of the "horizon".

"Don't even think about it," she hisses, her eyes flashing with fierce indignation. There is a brief flash of uncertainty and fear from her, which is the first indication that she knows that her defences won't hold up forever against a telepath of Jean's calibre, and the first indication that she is aware that she cannot fight an effective counter-offensive forever. "You can't tell me anything I don't already know."

"What if we tell you about the fact that the X-Men want to help you, Rebecca?" Scott says in a subdued kind of way. "Did you know that?"

That sets Rebecca off again, her face twisting with fury, and her body warping once more as it begins to cover itself in thick, padded combat armour, which bristles with pistols and knives. It looks uncannily reminiscent of Scalphunter's armour – in fact, the only thing that's missing is Scalphunter's belt-worn collection of ragged, greasy scalps, and his small, misshapen bags of variously-shaped teeth. "Don't you people get it?" she snarls. "I'm a Marauder. And you tell me that you still want to help me?" She snorts with contemptuous laughter. "Don't lie to me! I'm not stupid, Dad – I know what you really think of people like me."

"I'm not lying, kiddo," Scott tells her gently. "It's not my thing." He gives her the best smile he can muster, and spreads his hands wide. One of the things the astral plane can convey excellently is sincerity, which must suit Scott very well. The man's so bloody honest in everything that he does, after all. "All we want to do is help you see that you have a place here." He folds his arms. "You always will. What do you say?"

"Go to hell," Rebecca rasps. "I know where I belong. When Sinister comes to get me, you'll know, too." She sneers at Jean, who is busy trying to break through Rebecca's psychic barrier with her version of a psionic suit of armour, her mailed fists hammering again and again into the facsimile of iron bars that lies between us and her, creasing them with every blow. "He'll come for me, I know it. He told me I was special. He told me He'd always be there for me."

"Sinister's the real liar here," Jean snaps, in between efforts to shatter her prison bars, her face twisting with anger and frustration. I can feel the fiery sting of her emotions press against my mind, like a cat's claws dragging across an eyeball; the sensation is disquieting, to say the least. "He'd tell you the sky was purple if he thought it'd get you to do what he wanted you to do."

"Shut up!" Rebecca snaps petulantly. "I don't believe you!"

"Believe what you like, Rebecca," I say, matter-of-factly. "It won't change the truth. Scott and Jean want to help you - I don't know why they want to help you, but they do. They want me to help them do that. And that means you have to start trusting us."

"Trust?" Rebecca sneers. "Why the hell should I trust you?"

"Because I could have killed you a hundred times before now, and I didn't," I say coldly. "I could have strangled you and been done with it. I hate what you are, Rebecca. I hate what you stand for. I hate what you represent. I hate what you remind me of, every time I look at you." I hold onto my daughter's mind with a steely resolve, letting my thoughts intermingle with hers, anchoring myself to her almost inexorably. She tries futilely to disentangle herself, but I hold steady and keep her attention focused on me. "But I let you live. Why I did that, I don't know. Perhaps I thought that the spiteful, vicious little bitch that you are now could become something better in the future. Perhaps I wanted to torture myself even more than your Marauder friends did. Perhaps I just wanted to see if I could make my life even more complicated than it already was." I pause, letting the impact of my words sink in on not just Rebecca, but Scott and Jean as well. "Whatever the reason was, I kept you alive when I could have just let you die. That means you owe me. And the way I see it, Rebecca, is that that means that you're going to have to adjust to being here, whether you like it or not. Sinister isn't coming for you, and you're going to have to get used to that. Whether you do that lying here in the med-lab or out there in the mansion is up to you."

That's when I break the psychic connection, returning to my body almost instantaneously and once again feeling the pain of reality settle into my bones. Scott and Jean return a few seconds later, evidently because they feel they have seen enough to know my feelings on the matter clearly enough. When Jean has re-oriented herself again, she looks at me, her green eyes filled with a kind of disbelief that I haven't really seen from her.

"You really think that what you did will work?" she says quietly, her eyebrows raised.

"It had better," I reply shortly. "I won't spend more time with her than I need to, that's for sure."

Scott finds his voice finally, after a moment or two of looking down at his daughter's sleeping form. "Maybe that's just what she needs – to know that we care about her. Maybe that's what the trick is to changing her mind about us."

"Really?" I say, hopelessly, rubbing my eyes with my fingertips. "I hope so, Scott. For your sake, if nothing else."


	5. Chapter 5

"So," Warren says, his brow creasing with barely-veiled concern, "how'd they take it?"

"As well as can be expected, I think," I tell him, folding my hands together over the handle of my stick. "Scott still wants to help her, and Jean? Well, you know her better than I do, so I think you can guess her reaction."

Warren smiles ruefully, and scratches his unshaven chin with a single fingertip. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I can." He coughs, and clears his throat. "You haven't shown her to me yet, Betsy."

"With good reason," I snap, glaring at him suddenly. "I didn't want you to see what she's become until I was absolutely sure that you were ready for it." Warren's blue eyes flare with indignation, and he draws back from me, his face twisting with hurt.

"Betsy…" he says softly, "I'm ready now. That's my daughter we're talking about – if I can't accept what she is now, then what chance will I ever have?"

Sceptically, I raise an eyebrow. "Are you ready, Warren? Do you know what I saw in her mind?" Warren shakes his head without a word, but his expression doesn't change; he still has a look of wronged determination etched into his features, and he still looks absolutely committed to doing what he wants to do. Absolutely what I expected...

Perhaps if I showed you, Warren, you'd be a little less eager, I tell him with my thoughts, deciding that words won't sufficiently illustrate what I'm trying to get across to him. She was there with the Marauders, and she was just like them. She told Scott and Jean that they would never change her. She showed all three of us that she doesn't want to change what she is.

"But Scott and Jean still want to help her," he says, gripping my hand a little more tightly. "Surely that should tell you something?"

"Maybe it does, Warren," I say, speaking aloud once again, "but I don't know if I can do this thing. I told Scott and Jean that I would help them help her, but I'm not sure if I can make good on that promise." I pull my lips into a thin line for a moment, inclining my head to one side briefly. "What am I supposed to do? Act like them? I don't have a fucking clue how to relate to Rebecca!"

"Join the club," Warren says sardonically. "Nothing would make me happier than to have everything go back to the way it was." He sighs. "But that's not exactly going to happen, so I thought that you and I ought to… well… adopt Rebecca, legally."

That makes me laugh out loud – a thin, listless sound, without any real humour behind it. "Even assuming that I wanted to adopt Rebecca at this point, Warren – which I don't – how would you propose we do that? She doesn't even exist, as far as the law is concerned. You can't just waltz right into the adoption offices and ask them oh-so-nicely if they'll just overlook the fact that she doesn't have a birth certificate or a Social Security number. They'd laugh in our faces – or worse, arrest us for fraud."

"No, they wouldn't," Warren says, his thoughts indicating a sudden flash of discomfort, which is mirrored in his cheeks flushing purple for a moment or two. That's enough for me to realise that something has been going on outside my notice, and it's also enough for me to feel usurped in some fashion, although I'm not sure exactly how. "I can pretty much guarantee that."

"How can you guarantee that?" I say, gritting my teeth and fixing Warren with a steely glare. "What have those two idiots done now?"

"Those 'two idiots' didn't do anything, Betsy," Warren replies calmly. "I asked Hank to help me fix Rebecca up with a Social Security number and a birth certificate. Right now he's making a few calls to some friends of his from his time on the Avengers, who still owe him a favour or two. They're going to give Rebecca a watertight life-history that not even Peter Gyrich could see through."

"And Henry agreed to this?" I am rendered momentarily speechless, anger churning restlessly in the pit of my stomach, as if I have swallowed a bucket of hot coals. "Why?"

"Because he wants this to be as simple as possible for all of us," Warren tells me, his expression conveying his obvious discomfort even more clearly. "He almost didn't say yes when I asked him, actually…"

"Are you surprised, Warren?" I snap, feeling some veins begin to throb painfully in my temples. "You asked him to break the law, for God's sake!"

"Bend the law," Warren corrects me. "And I'm not exactly comfortable with this either, Betts – this goes against everything that my parents ever taught me. Hell, it goes against everything that the Professor ever taught me, too – but I'm doing it because it's the only way that Rebecca will ever be able to fit into the outside world." He shrugs. "And it's not like we're going over entirely new territory here, Betsy; it's what we had to do for Rachel when she arrived here, after all –"

I'm about to snap at him again, but I pull back for a moment, forcing myself to calm down. I know Warren is only doing what he feels is right, and for that reason I forcibly quell the seething sensation of rage that is bubbling just beneath my skin. Besides, I did leave myself open to this when I agreed, however grudgingly, to Scott and Jean's ideas, so in this instance I don't really have a leg to stand on… "Yes, Warren, I know what happened. I'm just not very comfortable with it, that's all. Put yourself in my place; do you think you'd feel comfortable if I had done the same without you knowing?" Warren shakes his head, resignedly. "No, I thought not. Look, Warren… I appreciate what you're trying to do – I do – but I'd also appreciate it if you talked to me about it first."

Warren nods guiltily. "I'm sorry, Betsy. I know, I know, I should have spoken to you before I did anything, but… I just wanted Rebecca to feel that she has a place to belong other than with Sinister. I thought that if she saw something of what we'd done for her, she might change her mind, you know?" He shrugs sheepishly. "I thought it was a good idea to get Hank started on those phone calls as soon as possible; I didn't want to waste any more time than I had to." He pauses, and scratches behind his right ear with a nervous kind of energy. "I guess that's what a lifetime of trading on Wall Street's taught me, right?"

"I suppose so," I say, shifting my stick into the palm of my right hand and pushing myself to my feet arduously. Warren immediately starts forward to help me, but I wave him off firmly. "I'm going to go for a walk in the garden, Warren. Would you like to come with me?"

Warren raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I need some fresh air," I tell him, shortly. "Besides, aren't a husband and wife allowed to take walks together any more?" I offer him a small smile, as if that will soothe his misgivings. Immediately, I can sense that it doesn't (not totally, at least), but it's a start, I suppose. "I've missed you, Warren."

Warren's face clouds over with puzzlement. "I've been right here, Betts; right here the whole time. You know that. Why would you feel like that if you know I haven't gone anywhere?"

"You might have been in the house, Warren, but we haven't had that much time for the two of us to be alone together. Not really. I just… want an hour or two where I don't have to talk to anyone about Rebecca, and what I'm going to do with her. Is that being selfish?" I pause, sighing. "Because if it is, I don't want to cause any problems."

Warren shakes his head and stands up behind me. "No, Betsy, it's not being selfish at all." He moves so that he is beside me, and slips his hand into my free left palm. I grip it tightly, his blue fingers intertwining themselves with mine. "You want to go down to the lake?" he suggests, a little more brightly than before. "It's a little cold, but if you want I could find us some blankets –"

"No, it's all right, Warren. I think I can cope with a little cold. I've been down to the lake before in nothing but a swimsuit and a towel, after all." I sigh. "I appreciate the offer, though. Just… don't try wrapping me in cotton wool for the rest of my life, all right?"

Warren nods, a wry little smile on his lips. "You think I'd try doing that? I'm not that clingy, Betts. And I know you at least as well as you know me – I know you'd get pretty tired of that after a while. I'm just… I'm just trying to help you right now, that's all."

"I know. And I'm grateful, my angel." I return his smile as best I can, and move towards the door as quickly as my healing legs will allow, my stick dully thumping against the thick carpet of my room, and then clicking against the hard wooden floor of the hallway. It is still difficult for me to move at any real speed with my legs still unable to respond as well as they used to, and that frustrates me to no end. I used to be a dancer… but now all I am is a cripple, begging at the roadside for scraps that nobody else wants. My disgust for my situation is barely disguisable, and I'm sure Warren can feel it through our link, even if it weren't instantly obvious on my face.

Sure enough, Warren notices my discomfort, and stops, holding out his arms for me. "You know, if it would make it a little easier for you, I could… you know, carry you down to the lake, if you wanted me to. It's not that far, and you're not exactly a burden – far from it. What do you say?"

I shake my head, my posture stiffening slightly. "No thank you, Warren; I'm all right. If I don't keep doing this I won't ever be able to walk properly again. Not like I used to." I don't elaborate any further, but Warren understands. I've told him what Scalphunter used to do to me when I was a prisoner. I've told him how Scalphunter treated me like nothing more than a fleshy bag of smashed femurs and ribs, fit only to be thrown repeatedly to the wolves every night. To have to go unwillingly through the memory of that again – to have to be confronted by such an ugly demon, even when being treated like a princess by the person I love, more than anything else in the world – is too much for me to bear right at this moment. "Maybe next time." I offer him a hopeful smile – as much to reassure myself that I will be able to bring myself to accept such an offer, as to reassure Warren that he will be able to make that same offer in the future.

Warren nods sadly. "No problem," he says, dejected. "Next time."

The look on his face breaks my heart. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry –"

He waves me quiet, a philosophical expression replacing his disappointment. "It's okay. Really, it's okay. You take as much time as you need, honey – if you need to walk it, then you walk it, all right? Just remember I'll be here if you think you can't make it." He winks. "Come on, sweetheart. Last one to the lake buys dinner." He squeezes my free hand, and helps me down the stairs of the mansion's entrance hall before holding the front doors open for me.

"Better get that chequebook ready, darling," I tell him, before I slip my hand into his and walk alongside him, as fast as I am able. The grounds of the Xavier Institute are in autumnal mood, the leaves of the trees glowing in different shades of red, gold and yellow, both on their boughs, and scattered on the thick green grass that carpets the gardens. As Warren told me, there is a definite chill in the air, the scant remains of sprinkled early morning dew clinging to the grass. My breath mists in front of my face, forming small, puffy clouds that are swiftly carried away by the slight breeze. It's nice to be outside rather than cooped up indoors; it's been a very tiring few days, and I need some sunshine desperately…

Breakstone Lake feels clear and cool as I dip my hand into the water and let it play over my fingers gently. Across the water, there is a group of ducks fussing and grooming themselves, and paddling in lazy meandering paths in their search for food.

"They're pretty, aren't they?" I say softly, gesturing at them with a restrained movement of my hand, as one of the males raises himself up on the water with a few flaps of his wings in order to scare off a rival.

"Yeah. That they are," Warren agrees. "Sometimes I wish you and I could be like them – they don't have any worries at all. Just fly away when things get too tough, and start again somewhere else, you know?"

"You don't know how many times that thought had occurred to me, Warren," I sigh. "Couldn't we go to your aerie for a week or so – just the two of us?"

Warren raises his eyebrows. "Sure. We could do that." He pauses. "Would you really want to, though?"

I sigh again, sadly. "No." I run my hands through my hair, freeing it from its loose ponytail, and look out at the ducks again before continuing. "It wouldn't be fair to Scott or Jean to leave them here like that."

Warren nods. "You're too noble for your own good sometimes, Betts." He frowns suddenly. "I thought you didn't want to talk about them?"

"No, you're right, Warren, I didn't. Let's talk about something else." I shrug. "Anything. Please."

"So how about them Yankees, huh? Did you see their game against the Red Sox?" Warren says brightly, after a moment's pause. "That home run in the ninth innings –"

"Anything but sports," I say abruptly, my mouth tugging itself up at the corners in a reluctant smile. This is a favourite tactic of Warren's – he can make any given situation seem better than it is, by switching to something so completely unrelated that it seems ridiculous. Another of his talents…

Warren winks at me again. "Anything but sports. Gotcha." He takes my hand in his and glances at the sky for a second or two. "Can I tell you something, Betsy?"

I frown, a little taken aback. "Of course, Warren – what is it?"

Warren falls silent again for a second or two before speaking again. "These past few weeks…" He scratches at the base of his neck nervously. "These past few weeks have been tough for me, Betsy – nowhere near as tough as they have for you, I know, but pretty tough. Seeing you in so much pain, and not being able to do anything about it, is one of the hardest things I've ever had to experience in my life. See, it's not how I've lived my life up till now – if something was wrong in my company or my life, I fixed it. And now… with you, I saw something that I couldn't fix myself, and I felt helpless. Some big-shot CEO I am, if I can't even help my own wife get well, right?"

"But you are helping me, Warren." I reach towards him with my other hand, leaving my stick on the dewy grass, and stroke his cheek gently. "You've been helping me more than I can put into words."

Warren's mouth curves up lopsidedly. "Funny choice of phrase there, Betsy – I thought words didn't mean that much to telepaths?" He touches his forehead with his free hand, placing his fingers just below his hairline. "Don't tell me how you feel, Betsy – show me." His smile widens. "You know, you should be the one telling me to do this. Telepaths are supposed to be touchy-feely like that, right?" I smile at that, briefly.

"Not really, Warren, but thank you for the generalisation anyway," I tell him with a slight laugh. "Are you sure you want me to do this?"

Warren nods firmly. "Yes, Betsy, I'm sure." He taps his temple. "Come on. Hit me one more time, baby."

I raise an eyebrow. "Why in the name of God did I agree to marry you again?"

"Because I make kick-ass blueberry pancakes," Warren laughs, and taps his head again. "Get to it."

I sigh. "Very well, Warren. You asked for it." I cup his face in my hands and lean forwards so that our foreheads are touching, and our eyes are directly opposite one another. Then, I unlock the floodgates of my mind and let all the conflicting emotions I've been experiencing for the past few days sluice out of my memory, and into Warren's conscious mind, like a boiling tidal wave. I can see his eyes widen in shock as he feels my buried pains and agonies, and I can see tears streak his cheeks as he feels the gratitude and love for him that has sustained me for as long as I've been recovering. I can feel the butterfly of my telepathy settling in the middle of his mind, nestling into his thoughts as if they were my own, and it warms my heart.

On my part, I can feel the concerns, fears and worries that Warren felt for me then, and still feels for me now, a lot more viscerally than I can usually do so through our psychic rapport. The rapport gives me a detailed sense of them, of course, but to initiate this kind of telepathic contact, as well as keeping that bond open, means that every emotion is multiplied in its intensity. In fact, it's almost too hard for me to bear, but I keep the link open until I have exhausted my own deeply-concealed feelings, and there is nothing left in my mind to keep from him.

I draw back from Warren, and he blinks back his tears, wiping their salt trails dry with two fingertips. "Wow," he says simply. "That… that was intense, that's for sure. I had no idea you felt that way, Betts."

"Like I said, Warren, you've been helping me more than I can put into words," I tell him quietly. "Without you… this would have been a lot harder. It's… nice to know you're there."

"Always," he answers without hesitation. "You only have to ask. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Warren, I know that, and that means an awful lot to me." Warren pulls one side of his mouth up into a wry grin, his face brightening a little.

"There you go," he says cheerfully. "I can tell you're feeling better already." He kisses me on the cheek awkwardly, still afraid to upset me. The contact is brief, but it sends a shudder down my spine involuntarily, and crushes my good humour like a flower caught beneath a steel-capped jackboot. Warren immediately feels the shift in my mood through our link, and his face falls. "Aw, jeez… I'm sorry, Betts. I didn't mean to –"

"I know you didn't, Warren," I tell him. "Don't be sorry – it's not your fault, I promise. It happens sometimes, that's all. It'll happen until I'm ready to put what happened to me behind me, and there's nothing I can do about that." Warren nods sadly, and glances out at the lake's surface again.

"Bet you wish you could fly away more than ever now, don't you?"

I nod, watching the clouds blowing lazily across the sky with jealous interest. "More than you realise." Despite my words, Warren actually knows precisely what kind of pain I've suffered recently – when I have suffered flashbacks to what happened in the Bronx (which hasn't happened that often, thankfully, but still occurs sometimes), or have felt discomfort directly caused by it, he's felt precisely what I feel, since my control over my telepathic powers… wavers… somewhat during that time. Put succinctly, we both end up sweating and crying in recalled agony, and it tears us both up emotionally. It hurts me because I cannot spare him something that nobody should have to go through, and it hurts him because every time it happens, he feels that it was his fault that I was not spared it in the first place.

"You want to go back indoors?" Warren suggests, jerking his thumb in the direction of the house. "I'm sure we could find something to do in the rec. room, after all –"

I shake my head, and lie back in the deep green grass so that I can look up at my husband's kind features. "No, Warren – can we stay out here for a while? I like it here." I smile at him. "I like the view, especially."

"Ah, that's what they all say eventually," Warren says, looking away from me and running a hand through his hair in a show of mock-vanity. "Once you've had Worthington-love, you never go back."

"Oh, is that so?" I say, propping myself up on my elbows and regarding my husband with a curious eye. "Just how many people subscribe to this theory of yours?"

"You want me to go get you the club newsletter?" Warren offers, pointing towards the house again. "I'm sure I can dig you out a spare copy from the subscribers' list, after all. There's enough to go around."

I raise an eyebrow. "That wasn't an answer, Warren. Come on – give me precise figures. I'm interested."

"Well," Warren says, "let's just say that if you were to go down to the Village at night, they have entire clubs dedicated to Warren-worship." He preens again, theatrically, and I have to hit him playfully to get him to stop.

"Liar," I tell him with a small smile. "You don't have anything that attractive to put on the mass-market, you know." I pause. "Well, there is the whole sexy body and gorgeous blond hair thing, but other than that…" I shake my head. "Doesn't look too good, I'm afraid."

"Oh my. I better find a way of making money other than my looks, then, hadn't I?" Warren grins. "I'd better call off that photo-shoot I had planned for next week…"

I incline my head to one side, my smile still firmly in place, and sigh softly. "How do you do this, Warren?"

"Do what?" Warren asks, puzzled.

"Make me smile, when all I want to do is cry," I reply, simply. "How do you do it?"

Warren's face becomes a little more serious, but his response is just as light-hearted as ever. "It's a skill I learned from Jean," he begins. "She told me that making people happy when they're miserable is one of the most special things someone can do for someone else." He touches my hand briefly, his fingers gentle and restrained, and catches my gaze with his own. "Especially when that person they're trying to cheer up is the most precious thing in their life." He cups my cheek in his palm and I lean into it slightly, enjoying the sensation of his warm skin against mine. This time, there is no remembered discomfort – for which I'm eternally grateful – and I am able to enjoy the intimacy of the moment without feeling sorry for myself. Warren draws me close to him in a tentative embrace, and whispers into my ear "You're worth more to me than everything I own, Betsy. All I want to see is you happy again."

"The feeling's mutual," I reply quietly. "I could stay here forever." The sad undertone in my voice indicates to Warren that something else is on my mind, and he draws back from me so that he can look me in the eye.

"But?" he asks, perceptively.

"But I can't," I sigh. "We still have to deal with what's indoors, don't we?"

"Not until we go back inside," Warren scolds, wagging his finger at me. "We're going to stay out here a little while longer, and then we'll talk about Rebecca, all right?"

I smile again, my spirit buoyed slightly by Warren's little pep talk. "All right, Warren. That sounds like a plan to me."

Warren grins. "That's my girl." He picks up a small stone and skims it across the lake's surface. "While we're out here, I can teach you how to do this…"

For the first time in a long time, I feel as if I am having fun. The problems of my life still reside in my home, but they seem far away for a long while. And for that, I am grateful.

fin


End file.
